0:02 how many of you would like to live to be
0:07 a hundred or more how about living well
0:11 and healthy to a hundred or beyond I'm
0:13 going to show you how to do it
0:16 meet Madame Jean come on she lived in
0:18 the South of France where she ate the
0:21 Mediterranean diet was physically and
0:29 mentally active born 1875 died 1997 so
0:30 how long did she live can anybody do the
0:35 math 122 you passed your first cognitive
0:40 test well done now life expectancy was
0:43 much lower in the 19th century so her
0:46 longevity was quite remarkable before
0:48 she died she was mentally sharp and had
0:51 the brain of a healthy 80 year old she
0:53 was also an astute businesswoman at the
0:56 age of 94 she sold her apartment to a
0:59 French businessman who agreed to pay her
1:01 rent and let her live there for the rest
1:09 of her life he died 10 years later now
1:11 you may have heard about the blue zones
1:13 areas of the world where there are
1:16 clusters of centenarians people who live
1:18 to a hundred or more places like
1:23 Sardinia Italy Okinawa Japan or Loma
1:25 Linda California now in these regions
1:29 people share lifestyle habits that
1:32 comprise what I call the formula for
1:35 successful aging for things we can all
1:37 do for ourselves
1:41 physical activity mental exercise stress
1:46 management and healthy diet now I can't
1:48 guarantee that if you decide to move to
1:50 Sardinia Italy that you'll live to be a
1:52 hundred but there is compelling
1:56 scientific evidence that daily lifestyle
1:58 habits have a much greater impact on
2:02 your healthy aging than your genes the
2:04 quality longevity that we want to
2:07 achieve first involves brain health so
2:08 let me try to define brain health
2:11 because many people assume that brain
2:13 health is just memory it's all about memory
2:13 memory
2:17 certainly memory is important it defines
2:19 who we are without our memory we have no
2:23 past we can't plan for the future and we
2:26 can't enjoy the present but brain health
2:28 involves several mental functions like
2:32 being able to think and reason or keep a
2:35 steady mood now if we have a healthy
2:37 brain then we can make the right
2:40 decisions about lifestyle strategy so we
2:43 can maintain that brain health and
2:45 what's happening in our brains as we age
2:49 is that they experience excess
2:52 inflammation cells that normally fight
2:55 off infection or repair tissue start
2:58 attacking healthy brain cells
3:01 and we need anti-inflammatory strategies
3:05 to reverse that process and many healthy
3:07 daily habits like getting a good night's
3:11 sleep eating fish or physical exercise
3:14 fight brain aging because they are
3:22 anti-inflammatory now we know that as
3:26 doctors we can't diagnose Alzheimer's
3:28 disease at least in the past we couldn't
3:30 do that unless there was an autopsy
3:34 however at UCLA we invented the first
3:37 brain scan technology that allows us to
3:40 detect the physical evidence of
3:43 Alzheimer's disease in living people for
3:46 the first time so this animation
3:50 displays 20 brain scans arranged
3:52 according to memory scores and as memory
3:55 worsens Alzheimer's represented by the
3:58 warmer colors accumulates in the brain
4:01 now these scans here show you these
4:03 yellow and red areas where there's
4:06 advanced Alzheimer's disease as the
4:08 animation starts again we're seeing the
4:10 scans of people with normal memory these
4:12 people won't develop Alzheimer's
4:15 symptoms for decades to think that
4:18 Alzheimer's disease is silently growing
4:22 in our brains will freak people out but
4:24 I think this technology is an
4:27 opportunity to detect subtle problems so
4:30 we can fight brain aging while it's
4:34 early in its course we can plot memory
4:36 versus time and we can see that the
4:39 brain goes downhill if we do nothing to
4:41 protect it if we can intervene early
4:44 then we can slow down the process
4:47 unfortunately today we do too little too
4:49 late but it's easier to protect a
4:52 healthy brain than to try to repair
4:56 damage once it becomes extensive doctors
4:59 have come up with three major stages of
5:03 brain aging normal aging is when we joke
5:05 about misplacing our keys or forgetting
5:08 someone's name it tends to be stable but
5:10 if it progresses then the person
5:13 develops mild cognitive impairment when
5:16 it takes more time to compensate for
5:18 memory challenges now if that
5:21 compensation breaks down then the
5:24 individual develops dementia a memory
5:27 decline that interferes with
5:29 Independence there are a lot of
5:31 different causes of dementia Alzheimer's
5:34 disease is the most common cause but
5:37 depression medication side effects or
5:40 many reversible conditions can cause
5:42 dementia so it's important if you're
5:45 concerned about your memory to see your
5:48 doctor even if it is Alzheimer's
5:51 dementia there are effective treatments
5:53 available we know that if we put an
5:57 Alzheimer's patient on a placebo pill
5:59 they'll continue to worsen but there are
6:02 several effective medicines that can
6:07 temporarily stabilize symptoms but today
6:10 there's exciting research trying to
6:12 detect a disease modifying treatment
6:14 that can actually slow down the
6:17 progression of the illness these
6:20 developing treatments include vaccines
6:24 infusions new pills focused ultrasound
6:26 to try to jumpstart the brains memory
6:29 centers and even insulin nasal spray
6:31 because we know that diabetes increases
6:34 the risk for Alzheimer's disease
6:37 unfortunately we don't yet have a magic
6:40 bullet but already we know there are
6:43 several effective strategies to help us
6:46 age well and number one is physical
6:48 activity you don't have to become a
6:51 triathlete to protect your brain just
6:53 twenty minutes of brisk daily walking
6:54 will lower your risk for Alzheimer's
6:58 disease workouts will boost endorphins
7:01 which stabilizes your mood and physical
7:05 activity actually produces proteins that
7:07 get your brain cells to sprout badge
7:09 branches so they communicate more
7:13 effectively if you exercise your brain
7:16 will get bigger and a bigger brain is a
7:19 better brain so if somebody calls you a
7:28 number two mental exercise we know that
7:31 we can stimulate our minds by playing
7:38 games by socializing by doing all kinds
7:40 of things that are new and interesting
7:43 in fact if you have a college education
7:46 you have a lower risk for Alzheimer's
7:49 disease we've done some interesting
7:51 research to find out about our new
7:54 technology I mean the question is does
7:59 it help or hinder our brain health the
8:01 answer is both when our devices distract
8:06 us we have an impairment in our memory
8:09 but we can pick and choose what we
8:11 commit to memory and look everything
8:15 else up online so we decided to do some
8:16 interesting research to understand this
8:20 better to find out what goes on in the
8:22 brain the first time people search
8:25 online now to perform this study we had
8:29 to find volunteers who had never done an
8:31 internet search and we soon learned that
8:33 we could not recruit these people on
8:36 lines is not going to work but we were
8:38 able to find a group of older adults who
8:40 were naive to internet searching and we
8:42 compared them to an older group that had
8:45 prior internet experience and we tracked
8:48 their online brain activity using MRI
8:51 scans so when the Internet naive people
8:54 searched online these red areas show you
8:57 where their brains were active but when
8:59 the internet savvy people searched
9:01 online their brains were having a party
9:04 there was a huge increase in neural
9:07 activity so we think when people search
9:09 online for the first time or engage in
9:12 any new mental activity we don't quite
9:15 know what to do but once we come up with
9:18 a mental strategy there's an upsurge in
9:21 neural activity so simply searching
9:24 online can be a form of brain exercise
9:27 now we can also train our brains using
9:30 memory methods to compensate for
9:33 everyday memory impairment I came up
9:35 with a method I call look snap connect
9:39 so look is a reminder to focus attention
9:42 the biggest reason we don't remember as
9:45 we're simply distracted snap is a
9:49 reminder to make a mental snapshot of
9:51 what you want to recall our brains are
9:54 hard-wired to remember visually and
9:55 connect as a way of linking up those
9:58 mental snapshots so they have meaning if
10:01 something is meaningful it will be
10:04 memorable now you can use these methods
10:08 for remembering where you park your car
10:11 so here's three bumblebees hovering over
10:13 my car now if I park just below it in
10:16 lot to be I see William Shakespeare
10:18 standing on my car reciting to be or not
10:22 to be now does that mean that my car is
10:25 not to be a lot to be
10:27 may not be the best example but these
10:30 methods are very powerful for
10:33 remembering names and faces so if you
10:35 meet this gentleman there's a lot of
10:37 hair it's very easy because his name is
10:41 harry lisa has a subtle Mona Lisa smile
10:45 or you meet mrs. bangle her bangs make
10:47 it easy for a last name and she tells
10:50 you she's an attorney and that helps you
10:52 remember her personality now I encourage
10:55 people to use these methods because when
11:00 you meet someone who is you know and you
11:02 can't recall their name it's very
11:04 stressful and that brings us to number
11:08 three stress management stress is the
11:11 enemy of healthy aging chronic stress
11:12 shrinks the memory centers of the brain
11:15 if you inject a human volunteer with the
11:18 stress hormone cortisol it causes
11:21 temporary memory impairment but Tai Chi
11:23 meditation yoga and other relaxation
11:26 methods can reverse the process can
11:29 improve mood and improve memory ten
11:31 minutes of meditation each day actually
11:33 rewires areas of the brain and can
11:35 improve measures of telomeres on our
11:39 chromosomes which predicts longer life
11:41 expectancy we can also reduce stress by
11:45 spending time with friends by getting a
11:47 good night's sleep and you can combine
11:49 these strategies efficiently by
11:51 practicing the triple threat against
11:53 Alzheimer's disease take a walk with a
11:56 friend the physical exercise will boost
11:58 your brain health the conversation will
12:00 tweak those neural circuits if you talk
12:02 about what's worrying you it will reduce
12:07 stress now it's important to be relaxed
12:08 because we don't have stress we digest
12:11 our food better and that brings us to
12:14 number four healthy diet obesity
12:17 increases the risk for dementia but when
12:19 obese people lose weight it improves
12:21 their memory in those fits lasts for years
12:22 years
12:25 we need more omega-3 fats from fish and
12:28 nuts which are anti-inflammatory in
12:30 consuming fruits and vegetables fight
12:33 age-related oxidative stress and we've
12:35 got to minimize those chips and donuts
12:37 and other other refined sugars and
12:38 processed foods
12:40 which increase the risk for diabetes and
12:43 that increases your risk for dementia
12:47 good news on the nutrition front alcohol
12:50 in moderation lowers your risk for
12:53 dementia now it may be they're just
12:55 having a glass of wine at dinner lowers
12:57 stress but it could be ingredients in
13:00 the alcohol resveratrol which has been
13:04 extracted from red wine can actually be
13:06 anti ageing in the laboratory the
13:08 trouble is we don't know if the extract
13:10 actually gets into the brain so anybody
13:13 here taking resveratrol capsules wash it
13:14 down with a nice Bordeaux to be on the
13:18 safe side caffeine in moderation
13:21 protects the brain as do spices we just
13:23 completed in a study testing a
13:26 bioavailable form of curcumin from the
13:29 spice from turmeric its
13:31 anti-inflammatory in India there's a
13:33 lower rate of Alzheimer's disease and
13:36 people who consume spicy Indian food
13:38 more often perform better on memory
13:41 tests let's see how your memory is now
13:45 what's his name excellent and Lisa and
13:48 you remember this woman very good sue
13:52 bangle I incur the bottom line is it's
13:55 never too late or too early to start
13:58 living a healthy longevity lifestyle
14:00 we've already started by making the
14:03 connection between behavior and healthy
14:05 aging the next step is to begin a
14:10 program that is fun and easy my most
14:12 recent book is called two weeks to a
14:14 younger brain trust me if I called it
14:16 two years to a younger brain no one
14:19 would buy it but two weeks is just
14:21 enough time to start learning the
14:24 exercises to start experiencing benefits
14:27 and that positive feedback motivates us
14:29 to continue the healthy lifestyle
14:31 strategies for the long haul this is
14:33 what we're doing at the UCLA longevity
14:36 Center you can look us up online and get
14:38 some brain exercise or check out other
14:41 resources like AARP staying sharp which
14:44 is a brain health platform that is
14:45 science-based and helps people track
14:48 their brain health over time
14:51 remember your everyday habits have a
14:52 greater impact
14:56 on how long and how well you age madam
14:58 c'mon lived a hundred and twenty-two
15:01 years with a healthy brain and you too
15:03 can take control of your future
15:06 longevity by following the formula for
15:09 successful aging exercise your body
15:12 stimulate your mind manage stress and
15:15 eat right so you can enjoy yourself as
15:18 you live better and longer thank you [Applause]
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